Into the Stars
by Elfpen
Summary: Arthur sails across the Atlantic to give a young Alfred a gift. Alfred finds a new fascination, which will bring the whole world to places no one—let alone Arthur Kirkland—ever dreamed possible.


**A/N: **I have been in a serious writing rut, as you may have noticed... but I managed to write this and I think I've got my writing muscles warmed up again, so hopefully, an update to _Reprise _will come along sooner rather than later. Hopefully. Life has been kicking my butt recently. I know this isn't my usual fandom, but I hope you'll all enjoy.

* * *

**_September 14th, 1718, The British Colony of Virginia_**

It'd been an expensive gift to ship across the Atlantic, but the look on the boy's face was worth every penny.

Night skies over England were almost constantly shrouded in clouds—even clear nights never felt complete without a few gossamer curtains to frame the heavens. The atmosphere above America didn't seem to share the same meteorological modesty; on nights like this, it was nothing but stars for miles upon miles. Old as he was, Arthur felt the breath snatched from his lungs just to look at it.

"Wow, wow, wow!" It was all Alfred had proven capable of saying for the past half hour. Arthur smiled from his perch against the gable wall. By the window, Alfred was bouncing erratically in his excitement, smiling and fighting to contain himself as he played with his new toy. It was a rare and entrancing thing this far from continental civilization, but it had a real practical use, as all of Arthur's gifts did.

"Wait, where'd it go?" Alfred stepped back and regarded the sky with a frown.

"Your jittering has knocked it out of view," Arthur chided and went to kneel beside the tripod. "These things are quite sensitive. You must keep it very still for it to work."

As if by magic—but not actual magic, Arthur knew—Alfred's bouncing stopped. The boy's fascination with new things was perhaps the only thing in the world that could overcome his lack of self-control.

"There we are," Arthur repositioned the telescope with an expert's eye. "There she is, back again." He scooted back on his knees so Alfred could step forward, the two now at the same level. "Take a look," he smiled.

Alfred did, and "ooh"ed over his restored view of the moon. Arthur watched him with the keen eyes of a teacher.

"Can you tell what phase it is?" The elder asked.

"Umm," Al paused, eyes invisible to Arthur as the boy gazed through the lens, "waning gibbons? I mean gibbous!"

"Very good," he ignored the bit about primates. "Now how about you try aiming it? Can you find the North Star?"

"Sure!" was Alfred's cavalier reply, having never attempted such a thing in his life. He swung the telescope wildly on its mount so Arthur had to dodge out of the way.

"Careful," he reached out a hand, worrying for the glass lens that had only just made it all the way across the ocean. "I don't think the North Star is in your bedroom, lad, point it out the window."

"Sorry," Alfred corrected course abruptly, causing the tripod to tilt and age Arthur's heart another millennium, before he stopped on a dime and, somehow, put the North Star perfectly in his sight.

"It looks huge from here!" He shouted unnecessarily, and Arthur wondered how many people they'd woken up so far.

"It's the brightest star in the sky," he explained. "It's a bit lower in the sky here than in England, but that just means we're standing further south than London." A wry smile crossed his face. "You know," he eyed Alfred when he spoke. The boy always had theatrical reactions to "old people stories," and despite himself Arthur enjoyed them a great deal. "Before we had compasses and maps and all those fancy things, we found our way across the sea by nothing but the stars."

"Woah, really?" Alfred turned away from his telescope to fix Arthur with huge gawking eyes. He looked up at the North Star and then back at Arthur. "How?"

"The stars move with the seasons and the time of day, but that star," Arthur pointed out the window to the North Star, which he didn't need a telescope to see. Alfred followed his finger and stood still, utterly transfixed. "Is always true north. So if you know the day and can see the North Star, you can use the constellations to guide your ship anywhere you want to go." He smiled, wistful for the salty air and the leagues of ocean at his command. "Sometimes, if the night is clear enough, I like to leave my compass behind and find my way like I used to. It's how I sailed here to see you now."

For a bizarre and lengthy moment, Alfred didn't say a word. He looked through his telescope and then out the window with just his eyes. He alternated between the two a few times before he broke the quiet by flailing backwards at Arthur, eyes not leaving the sky.

"Teach me, teach me!" He screeched, tugging on the frill of Arthur's sleeve with unnatural strength. Knocked off balance, the kneeling nation tumbled forward and had to catch his hand on the windowsill. Alfred didn't seem to care. "What's that one?" The boy demanded.

Keeping pace with Alfred's energy was impossible, and it was equally impossible to tell which constellation he was pointing at.

"Do you mean Cygnus?" Arthur guessed.

"Okay," Alfred accepted without verification and moved on. "What about that one? Or that one? Or _that_ one?"

Arthur laughed, righting himself and running a hand over his face. "Heavens, lad, slow down. I got you a book about the constellations, I know I did. Why don't you go fetch it, and I'll show you, alright?"

And so the night went on, unsleeping through the hours that Arthur watched plotted in the stars. He recited constellations and Alfred found them in the telescope, and Arthur told him in what months they appeared and how they moved, and soon, the young nation didn't even need the book to recite the facts back to him.

The sun was beginning to rise, and Alfred seemed to be growing sleepy, because he'd fallen very still as he stared up at the sky, watching as the stars faded into the dawn. However, he sounded more alert than ever when he broke the growing quiet to say:

"I'm going to go there someday."

"Hmm?" Arthur's voice felt hoarse from reciting centuries worth of astronomy. "To Greenland?" It's what they'd been speaking of last, before the predawn quiet had taken hold.

"No, there," Alfred pointed, up.

Arthur stared, not sure of what to say. "You can't sail to the stars, America."

"Why not?" Alfred asked immediately. It made Arthur laugh.

"Well it's not as though humans can fly, can they?"

"But I'm not human, am I?" Alfred turned to him with big, blue, guileless eyes.

"Well," it would never be a simple subject, "no, not really, but you can't fly either."

"I can learn," Alfred decided, watching a hawk far in the valley below begin its morning hunt. Unseen behind him, Arthur's smile was bittersweet.

"Even if you could fly, you could never reach the stars, lad," Arthur told him.

"Sure I could." Alfred's voice was loud and unfazed. He looked through his telescope at the big, bright, waning moon. He felt it in his bones. "I know I could."

Arthur watched and shook his head.

"I'm sure," he said, not meaning it. "Now come along. You and I both had better get some rest."

* * *

**_3:56am, July 21st, 1969, London, England._**

It was, in the most wholly literal sense, one of the most unearthly experiences of Arthur Kirkland's life.

"_That's one small step for man... one... giant leap for mankind."_

Mouth hanging open, the only thing that could compel him to look away from the television was the irrational pull of what he might see from the window—but the curtains were drawn. The only light in his flat was the fizzy glow of the television; the only sounds the excited tones of James Burke from down the road, and the sound of history in progress from immeasurably further away.

Arthur crossed the floor and pulled the curtain aside, using it to cowl his face so he could see out into the night without glare from the broadcast.

The light of London was like a fog, and he could see little of the night sky even at this witching hour. But there, shining like a white slice in the cosmos was the waxing crescent where at that moment, three humans stood. He imagined, if only in passing fancy, that he could see them even from here.

Singularly visible among its brethren, the North Star winked at him from the right hand sky.

The sound of cheering made him turn back to the television. It was grainy video from Houston, a fly-on-the-wall view of a room full of men sat at rows of machines. They were clapping and cheering, and standing up so excitedly that their headphones were pulled off their ears.

Arthur was willing to bet he was the only one watching who would recognize that cowlick from behind even in grayscale. Alfred F. Jones, in need of a sleep and a shave, slapped his colleagues on the back and turned just briefly enough that the camera caught a glimpse of his smile, wider and brighter than the moon.

"You mad bastard," Arthur whispered to the TV, overcome with some emotion that he couldn't classify. He began laughing, and maybe it was hysteria or happiness or terror. He stooped to the side table where he'd let his pint grow tepid and tipped it to the screen, even as the BBC switched back to the lunar frontiersmen. "Cheers, lad," Arthur said to the quiet room, where Alfred couldn't hear him.

He fell asleep on his couch and awoke mid morning to the sound of a knock on his door. He answered it. It was a sweating, huffing courier, who presented him with a huge and presumably heavy box.

"I'm not expecting any package," he told the man, a hand still on the door.

The courier was unbothered. "You are," he glanced at the box, "Arthur Kirkland, aren't you?"

"I am, but I'm not expecting…" it was nearly as big as his stove. _"This_. Who sent it?"

The man huffed a laugh. "You know, I got a note that said you'd say that, I thought it was a joke. Told me to ask you if you'd preferred it be addressed to "Old Man"."

Arthur glanced at the box. It was covered in American stamps.

"Christ," he sighed, and held out his hand, "Fine." The courier gave him a taught English grin.

"If you could just sign here, sir."

The box was indeed heavy, and it took some maneuvering to get it into the flat. Once Arthur finally got it past the door and into his kitchen, he stood up and glared at it. It was covered in bright red _FRAGILE _stamps, and had enough paper currency on it to ship an entire person across the Atlantic. _He's working for NASA and he can't even do sums for the post, _Arthur shook his head, and set about unpacking it.

Inside, on top of all the rest,, there was a notecard.

_I'm mailing this on the seventh of July. _Alfred had developed an engineer's all-caps script in recent decades. _ My guys tell me we've got t-minus thirteenish days until showtime, and last I checked it took about the same time to get something this big to London—hopefully still in one piece. With any luck, this will be a timely souvenir. Call me optimistic. _

_This one's a bit stronger than the one I've got up in my room. Enjoy!_

Frowning and very curious, Arthur dug through the packing paper to uncover a latched leather case. He opened it. Disassembled in front of him, in whole, complete, and cutting-edge pieces was a telescope. There was a gift tag tied to the viewing lens. He turned it over.

_Happy sailing! _It read, over a doodle of a sailboat towing the moon.

"You prick," Arthur found himself smiling. He unpacked the telescope that very afternoon, and stayed up late to use it despite the horrible light of London.

The only thing he could see with any clarity was the moon, and, although he'd never, _ever _admit it to Alfred, he watched it all night until morning.


End file.
